As electronic products become smaller and consume less energy, the components within them are increasingly miniaturized, making it impossible to inspect component assembly process with human eyes and creating greater demand for automated inspection equipment. Following a few years of rapid development, the Chinese automated optical inspection (AOI) equipment market reached RMB8.81 billion in 2016, an 18.4% rise over the previous year and 20.1% of global AOI market, and is expected to present a CAGR of 9.6% during 2016-2021.

AOI is primarily used in PCB, FPD, semiconductor, and photovoltaic cell industries. In China, AOI finds the most widespread application in PCB industry, followed by in FPD and semiconductor sectors but with a relatively small market scale. The three industries accounted for 61.9%, 14.8%, and 16.9% respectively of the total AOI market in 2016.

In contrast, some big international companies, represented by Orbotech (Israel), Screen (Japan), and Koh Young Technology (South Korea), occupy major segments with full product lines, while some ones, represented by Omron, KLA-Tencor, and HB, aim at front-end industries (like semiconductor and FPD) and have a stranglehold on high-end markets. In addition, some Taiwanese players, such as Test Research, UTECHZONE, and MACHVISION, extend to the Chinese mainland market and form another force by virtue of their supporting relationship with Taiwan’s component industry, but are affected by political climate and Chinese mainland’s own supply chain, and have weakened since 2015.